GTG and Secret Stitching Revealed

Saturday morning, Susan and I got up bright and early to drive to Jenny‘s house for a GTG with Kelly and Melissa.  Jenny generously provided to her guests a sweet gift which included this gorgeous scissor fob!

Thank you Jenny – I adore it and everything else!

Susan and I had decided several weeks ago that we would make nametags for our friends who would be at the GTG. I modified the Victoria Sampler Herbal Sachet kit patterns to stitch the following :

Susan did a beautiful job of finishing:

Now I just have to make one of these for mysef!

Stitched Gift for Mom’s Birthday

My mother’s birthday was yesterday.  I’d stitched this little sampler for her several years ago and never really finished it.  I found it in my pile of stitched-but-not-finished projects and decided to finish it for her birthday as a pinkeep:

Victoria Sampler March Needleroll

I heard today that she loved it and also liked the extra long loop at the top so that it could be hung.  🙂  I’m really happy that she liked it.

I’m looking forward to a fun weekend…  I’ll be meeting up with a group of wonderful friends for a day of stitching!

I’ve kitted up my March Ornament…  Prairie Schooler “Snowy Night” from the 2008 Just Cross Stitch Ornament issue.   I love all of the blues and white.  Its pretty small, so hopefully it will be finished by the end of March.  🙂

I hope everybody has a great weekend!

BAP Milestone Reached!

This weekend I finished up one corner of Chatelaine’s Alpine Seasons… all the way to the outer border!

I have a goal of finishing Alpine Seasons by the end of 2009, which gives me three months for each of the remaining quarters of the chart! I think I could accomplish that if I didn’t have any other projects I wanted to start this year.  🙂  For now, this one is going to be put away for a while.

Gift Received

I got word that the recipient has received one of the pinkeeps I made a couple of weeks ago….  Marilyn Leavitt-Imblum free 2000 Christmas Angel:

I stitched this on a mystery overdyed fabric that I got in an exchange several years ago. I thought the color fit perfectly with the shading in the wings and it was just the perfect sized fabric. This pretty little angel has been sitting in my stitched stash for years and finally my friend Susan expressed interest and I finished it up for her. I’m glad to know it’s out of the dark and somewhere where she’ll be appreciated!

SAL Finished!

At the last Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana stitchers GTG, our hostess, Kelly (no blog) gave each of us Little House Needleworks’ “Hen Party” as a gift.  Kelly had kitted the pattern up and all we had to do was get stitching.  Susan and Jenny have both stitched theirs, and here is mine:

Little House Needleworks’ Hen Party

So cute!  So fun to stitch!  Thank you Kelly!!  I was a bit concerned about my fabric choice (Lambswool) and how well the white stitching in the house would show up, but I think it looks OK and I’m very happy with the final result.

I’ll probably finish this as a pinkeep, as that is my new favorite finishing method, at some point in the future.

I’d really like to get back to Alpine Seasons, but I also want to start Alhambra Garden, now that I’ve got everything I need….  not sure which I’ll work on first…

Stash Enhancement, Movie, and Theater

So, I took a trip to House of Stitches today to pick up floss and flossaway bags for Chatelaine’s Alhambra Garden (pics courtesy of Annette’s blog).  I also saw LHN’s Traveling Stitcher and had to have that, then picked up a lovely piece of fabric for Alhambra.  I’ll post a pic of the floss toss when I’m ready to get started on that.

DBF was kind and granted my wish to see Twlight…  it was fluffy, but I liked it and surprisingly enough, DBF didn’t seem to mind too much.  I do have to say I’ve been to Forks, Washington and most of this movie was filmed in the Columbia River Gorge rather than the Olympic Peninsula.  I’ve hiked to the top of the gigantic waterfall shown in the movie.  Anyway, I’ve read the whole series of books, and while not really literature, I enjoyed the pure entertainment value of the books w/out having to think too hard about things like symbolism or deeper meaning.

We also had tickets tonight for the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at the Morris in South Bend…. not a bad show, but not life changing either. 

All in all, a good day!

Fun and Productive Weekend

A couple of weeks ago we got an invitation to attend an art opening in Chicago.  The artists were DBF’s sister and her boyfriend, so we decided to go.  Since the opening was on a Friday night, we planned a mini weekend getaway!

Friday after work, we drove into Chicago and checked into the Palmer House Hilton downtown… this is a VERY nice hotel which we got a steal on through priceline…  I was dazzled by the beautiful lobby:

Wow… the room was really nice too.

We hopped on the El and went to the Morse Theater to catch a show by Duncan Sheik.  I expected an OK show by a guy who had a hit song in the early 90’s but was ultra impressed! Apparently he has been quite busy composing contemporary music for a couple of broadway shows, Spring Awakening and Whisper House… I was blown away. It was an incredible show and the Morse was a great venue.

Following the concert, we visited the gallery where DBF’s sister was exhibiting, The Fill in the Blank Gallery.  We visited his sister and her boyfriend, who was also exhibiting.

The next morning, we took an architecure tour through the Chicago Architecure Foundation.  DBF’s brother is a docent with the CAF and was conducting a tour of the hotel we stayed at.  In addition to the amazing lobby, there are some amazing ballrooms too.  This is the third CAF tour I’ve attended in the last couple of years and always enjoy them…

Next, we visited the Art Institute.  There was an exhibit by Edvard Munch that DBF wanted to see.

Finally, we had an early dinner at a great vegetarian place called the Chicago Diner.  The food was good, but I’ve yet to find a place that rivals my all time favorite vegetarian restaurant – Mizuna in Spokane, Washington.

We got home last night and I had a busy day of finishing pinkeeps. As these are secret in nature, I can only show one…

I’ll post the rest once the recipients receive their gifts!  Pinkeeps are my new favorite finishing technique… so easy!  So pretty!

SAL Progress

I started a SAL with Susan and her mom:

The chart, all kitted up, was a gift from my friend Kelly who had a GTG at her house before Thanksgiving.  Thank you Kelly!  Here’s my weekend progress:

So, I got a decent start… I actually spent most of the weekend working on cross-stitch-which-must-not-be-posted…. well, not yet anyway. 😉  Stay tuned for future pics.

Other weekend activities… I met Susan at House of Stitches Saturday morning for a little shopping and lunch…. visited Hobby Lobby and Jo-Anns for some finishing supplies, hung out with my DBF, and generally had a pretty relaxing weekend.

My cat, Mia, was just begging to have her pic taken when she sported this cute pose this afternoon:

Believe it or not, she’s pretty tiny underneath all of that fluff.  The best part of this picture is the fact that there is NO SNOW in the background… Its been a long winter and I’m so ready for spring!  … and speaking of spring….

I got an e-mail yesterday that Celebration of Needlework is expecting to have their registration form up on Tuesday! I’ve already booked my flight and reserved a hotel room!  I can’t wait!